For the Love of Dravid ............

There are a few men we hate to see fall -  one such man is Rahul Sharad Dravid, 'The Wall' of Indian cricket for decades. Many dream to do what Dravid has done with the willow – with which he fought many a battle to bring glory to Indian cricket.

Dravid with his warrior spirit oozed confidence from the very beginning of his career and made an entire generation fall for his sturdy and no-nonsense approach to the game. Dravid may not be a Tendulkar or a Ganguly or may not be as swashbuckling as Sehwag, but he is and will go down as one of the batting greats to have ever graced the game of cricket.

Somewhere in all these years of grind, Dravid never got his due as a player but none can question his loyalty to the team, nor can one ever say that he flinched while facing hostile bowling that has been dished out to him all over the world.

Such is the prize on his wicket that legendary spinner Shane Warne wrote in his memoir:

"The fortress could also describe Rahul. Because once, Dravid was set, you needed the bowling equivalent of a dozen cannon firing all at once to blast him down."

Statistics say that Dravid after Allan Border faced the maximum numbers of deliveries in Test cricket – this tells us how much Indian cricket is dependent on him.

Year after year, Dravid has been consistently scoring runs and winning matches for India at home and abroad. No other Indian batsman has saved or won more Test matches than Dravid, but he has never received the accolades that he so rightfully deserved. Lack of laurels has never been a deterrent to his motivation; such is his love for cricket that Dravid like a humble servant of the game continues to labour every single day to bring honour to Indian cricket.

After Sachin Tendulkar, he is the only Indian batsman to score more than 10,000 runs in both forms of the game. But Dravid has always been the man behind the curtains and our board too hasn't been kind to him. From being forced to keep wickets when India missed an all-rounder to being given the captaincy when it had no takers, Dravid has done all that he could do for the country.

It's bewildering that there was no media hype and fanfare when Dravid went past 11,000 Test runs to become the fourth highest run-getter in Test cricket. Maybe we have failed to see the perfectionist in Dravid or maybe we just have a penchant for imperfection.

Is Dravid destined to play the quintessential role of the supporting hero eternally? He does not seem to have a problem with donning this role as long as the team wins. But I do have a problem with this as a true player like Dravid deserves to be up there with the greats of the game.

Hopefully his lack of runs in the Sri Lankan series doesn't force the selectors to overlook him for the Australia and New Zealand series.

It's a pity that from now on we will get to see less and less of a legend called Rahul Dravid.